Bloodlust: The Infamous 62nd
by username.java
Summary: Jaxen lived to see his world get built up, then fall apart. He only lives to hurt others. People like him are perfect for District Two's infamous "Career Program". Aimless, given an aim. Wandering, given a destination. Goalless, given a goal. Soulless, well, they'll worry about that later. Spans from 62nd Hunger games to 75th and rebellion


Bloodlust. that's what the trainers said to the psych lady when Jaxen was sitting in the chair in front of her, being forced to recount the latest in a steady stream of incidents; what did he do, why did he punch Luther, why why why why why. that's what the older kids nickname the young boy, what they whisper when they sneak him weapons in the dark to play with. what the trainers say during his first animal kill test, when he gets his first orange bead, when he smiles instead of crying like most kids. What they say when he carves an anatomical map into the chest of his first human kill test. Why he laughs at the sight of red.

He's never been able to put weight on like Torsti, never been a master of one weapon like Keller, but he knows how to work what he's got to beat them both at once. Jack of all trades, master of being a smartass, better than master of one. He's more wiry, tall at 6 foot 4 with muscles like whipcord and a gleeful, happy smile that never quite reaches his eyes, which retain a glint of a different kind.

Jaxen has never really had a mentor favourite. Sure, he played FFM with the others and laughed at the fanboys who picked Callista, mocked the orphans who chose Lyme or Nero, even though he was an orphan himself. The older kids never came to his room to cry into his teddy bear and talk about what it was like to take a life; that was Kyle before he got impaled by another kid over a girl.

By 18, he had 34 kills to his name, a record for bloodiest kill, and 17 different honours and awards. His wristband was adorned with red red red, some more orange, and a week before the reaping for 62, a gold bead, and under the slot for mentor was Lexi Wheating's signature. Ha-ha, Nathan would kill to be Jaxen right now. Lexi Wheating, THE Lexi Wheating, record holder for most kills in a single games, had chosen him over a bruiser like Torsti or Keller, and that had to mean something.

The final few days of his training went better than expected, with a few literal diehard Keller or Torsti supporters ganging up on him and trying to catch him off guard. He had gone from 46 to 67 kills in the final 3 days before the reaping. He had a few sessions a day with a trainer to coach him on his attitude and look for the pre-games events, wherein the two settled on an energetic, friendly person so he could surprise them with his viciousness in the end, just like Savannah Albertson had done in the 56th. He'd pretend to be a twitchy fanboy, astounded by the sights of the Capitol, and purposefully under-mine his score so the others would underestimate him just enough where they'd cross him out from their threat list, but they'll still let him into the pack. The only issue would be D2F, whomever that would be. They'll probably know just what Jaxen is capable of, and with luck she'll get killed off in the bloodbath by someone's hands other than his own, but at his hand if need be. If it's who Jaxen's thinking it'll be, it shouldn't be too hard to manipulate D4 and D1, maybe an outlier or two, to kill her for him.

The night before the Reaping, Jaxen doesn't sleep. He practices on wiping the snarl clean for now, replacing it with a wide-eyed smirk that did wonders for how old people would think he is. He was already rather twitchy, but he redirected his manic energy into a more subtle spring in his step and reserved himself to just tapping his foot when standing still. He eventually decides that his cot sucks, and so he sneaks out of the room careful of the camera in the corner into the hallway. He just so happens to hear someone sneaking about down the hall and to the right, in the 14-16 sleeping hallway. Curiosity doesn't always kill the cat, but it is more likely to kill a declawed cat, so he sneaks back to his room to grab his hip-sheath of throwing knives, then goes back out and pads down to the 14-16 wing. Left are girls, and right are boys. He hears something clatter to the floor and spins, flinging a knife that'd have speared someone of his height in the ribs. Instead, the five-foot six girl dodges out of the way and runs past him. All he sees of her is a pale, heart shaped face and eyes like his own. Eyes of a killer. He spins around, but the last he catches of her is a lot of sleek chestnut hair and the initials on the back of her sleeping shirt. A.M. He looks for what made the clatter, and finds a pair of sleek, rectangular glasses.

Jaxen is woken up by Taylor pouncing on him and assaulting him with a pillow. Jaxen twisted under him and 360 YEETED him off the bed onto the floor. Taylor let out a loud _oof_ as he hit the floor, probably bruising his back pretty badly. He lay there groaning, before he spoke up, saying "Good morning to you too".

Jaxen promptly burst into laughter. In between laughs, he managed to get out, "Dude, you woke the volunteer up by attacking him while he was asleep with a pillow. What in the fuck did you think would happen?"

Taylor stood up and attempted to rub his back. "Yeah, yeah, Mr. volunteer, rub it in. I dunno what I expected. Either way, I ain't gonna see any of y'all again most likely so might as well have some fun." Jaxen stood up, cuffing the back of Taylor's head.

"I've got a rather odd story to tell you."

File after file after file. Jaxen hazards around three filing drawers full. Who knew the Centre had so many girls with the initials A.M. Jaxen and Taylor, that's who. There were about 50 files per drawer which settled at around 150 files to go through. The Centre housed almost the entire eligible child population of D2, from 7 to 18, so with 200,000 kids in D2 that meant around 130,000 kids were residing in the center per year. In his building, C7, there were around 10,000 kids, and in Wing 4 there was about 1000, so narrowing it from there to 14-16 Females wasn't hard. The whole system was categorized down to gender and initials, and all the way up to the fucking entire 137K count of the entire Complex.

Taylor was the first to speak after about an hour. "So, she's around 5 7, white as a sheet, and has long brown hair? That's a needle in a fucken barn mate. We'd need a month to find her, not a few hours."

Jaxen pulled yet another file from the stack. Arilynn McKinney. Blonde. Annabelle Matthews. Too short. Annie Monroe. Too brutish, reminded Jaxen of Lyme. "Well, it's really quite simple if you think about it. Just bring a magnet. You're exaggerating by the way, there's only 54 files here, It took longer to find the files than we've spent actually looking through them".

"How the fuck did you make it to volunteer again?"

"By being better than you."

"Asshole."

Jaxen just snorted and said, "I'm not going to dignify that with a response".

He pulled a folder out at random and the front read Amber Mariniette. Under the name was a picture that was most definitely the girl he'd seen.

Taylor faked a look of awe. "I can tell by your look of triumph that that's her. What are you, a fucking magician?"

Jaxen laughed aloud. "Apparently. What say you, should we find this girl and chew her out?"

"Let's find her, but not interfere. Go to the glass divider and watch her group."

Jaxen absently flipped through the folder, then paused on a specific page. "She's in Cohort 77 with your brother's ex and that Harvey guy she's dating now."

"Oh, fuck that, man! Go find Camrose and get her to check it out with you. She's the other Volunteer."

"Nah, come on. I'll whoop your ass and drag you there, and guess who's gonna tell your brother?"

Taylor let out a breath, then flipped Jaxen off and stood up. "Fine, you backstabbing shithead. I'll play nice until that beast starts throwing knives at us."

Jaxen stood as well, stretching his arms out with a shit-eating grin on his face. In a sing-song voice, he mockingly said, "Don't worry Taylor, I'll protect you from the big bad 15-year-old girl who's a third your weight and skill."

"Go suck a dick. Alright, whatever. Let's go." They replaced the files into the filing machine, and they watched as it sucked up file after file, neatly stacking them away in the appropriate Cohorts.

Jaxen turned away, saying, "If only they had a machine that'd find the files". The two left the small work room and navigated their way through the maze of the Administrative Complex with relative ease, exiting the building right as the bell struck 11, and so they were rapidly swamped by little kids who had foregone their place in the lunch line to ask for autographs. By the time they escaped, lunch had already ended, and so they decided to head straight for the Stage 4 Hall, which is where Cohort 77 is slated to be after lunch.

They soon arrived at the training hallway, a long bright corridor with long glass walls and doors at the right-most end set at intervals. Jaxen looked through the first two and just his luck they weren't the group he wanted. He went down to about 15-16 before he noticed them. Even with their backs turned, his eyes seeked out and located the A.M. on her uniform immediately, singling her out. He buzzed the door and the Floormaster briefly paused in her attempts to berate a small boy to shout for them to enter. He steps in, and for a moment it's like he's back to being a scared 14-year-old with the harsh fluorescent lights blazing down on his skin as he met the first D2 volunteer sibling pair in two decades. They'd both go on to die, one in battle and the other of her wounds, but when he met them, they seemed like gods, magnificent and untouchable, somewhat like how he did now. The moment passed, though, and he plastered a twisted sneer on his scarred face. The room was stark and bare, bar the mats stretching over the entire floor and the right-most wall encompassed by weapons of every shape and size imaginable. The group of six and the Floormaster were situated in the middle of the room, with four kids leaning against the glass wall and two in center-stage, a thin, tall boy who looks like he'd been stretched out by a pair of giant ass stone-wheels, and a short beach ball with a tightly braided patch of hair in a square on the exact top of his head. The Floormaster was screaming at them both about unorthodox footwear. Taylor motioned towards her, and she abruptly screamed, "All of you, against the wall!"

The two fighters shelved their swords and stepped up to the wall, leaning lazily against it like it was their personal fucking house. The only ones who weren't were a boy, whom Jaxen vaguely remembered as Harvey, a big fat bruiser of a Two, and A.M. Jaxen could tell Taylor was raring at the bit to start shitting on their day, so Jaxen gave him a quick, subtle nod and Taylor calmly walked over to Beachball, got within three feet, and knocked his legs out from under him. The other five quickly snapped to attention, lest they incur the wrath of a jacked 18-year-old probably-to-be-junior-Floormaster-soon. Beachball got up, wobbling, and stood at attention as best he could. Clearly it wasn't enough, as Taylor grabbed his neck and hoisted him into the air by his throat, letting his feet swing a solid two feet off the ground. The rest of the group shuddered, at which point Jaxen motioned for Taylor to back off. He dropped the kid, who lay unmoving bar his rapid and shallow breaths, and stood by the Floormaster, who was watching Beachball's antics with a disapproving frown stretching her already thin lips. Jaxen slowly stalked over to the left-most side of the line and stared right at the blonde girl who was there. He looked her over for about thirty seconds, then moved to maybe-Harvey. He moved on to Amber, and after her thirty he shifted his hand to his pocket and withdrew the glasses from the night before, silently putting them on her face. He then punched her in the gut hard enough to break an inch of glass, but she merely grunted and pulled a face. Jaxen shrugged, and moved on. The next two, Mr. Stretch and another boy, were uneventful. Beachball, however, was still hacking up air on his knees. Jaxen brought his elbow around and knocked on the side of Beachball's head, sending the boy sprawling to the floor. He motioned to Taylor and the two swiftly left Room 15, shaking their heads and faking an angry argument about the kid's poor skills and sloppy footwork. Once in the hall, Taylor spared a glance at his watch, and said to Jaxen,

T: It's almost 12:30, we should probably head for the reaping.

Jaxen let out a hard breath. The Reaping. The Parade. His three minutes of fame. Then he'd be welcomed to hell on earth.

**AN:**

**Thanks for reading! If you have any ideas about how the reaping and the Parade should go, please let me know via a review.**


End file.
